The InDesigner

After six months, tens of thousands of words, and many late nights, I have finally completed my book for Adobe Press, “Adobe InDesign Styles: How to Create Better, Faster Text and Layouts” which is available for pre-order at Peachpit.com and at Amazon.com and will be shipping in the second half of April, 2009. I’m both glad to be done with it and very pleased with the end result: the first ever exploration of every InDesign style type, and all other features in the application that are “wired into” styles.

As many of you know from the podcast, I’ve got a passion for styles that’s finally seen a comprehensive outlet in this book. Below is the final table of contents for the book, so you can see what’s included between its covers, as well as in two bonus chapters that you can download for free when you register your copy of the book on the Peachpit web site (it doesn’t matter where you actually bought the book). I wrote way too much to fit in its 256 pages, but the material that got pulled from print will still see the light of day as downloadable content. As more information becomes available about any discount offers or codes that can be used, I will post that information on the blog and include it in future podcast episodes.

Speaking of the podcast, this book (even more so than the baby) is what’s kept me from posting any new episodes, as noted in a prior post. Now that it’s finished, expect to start seeing new podcast episodes very soon. I’ve missed doing them–as well as the interaction they give me with the audience–and video will be a refreshing change from writing after six months. Stay tuned!

PART 1: TEXT STYLES
Chapter 1  The Fundamentals:  Paragraph and Character Styles

• Character Style Attributes
• Paragraph Style Attributes
• Working with Paragraph and Character Styles

Chapter 2  Nesting and Sequencing Styles

• Nested Styles
• Advanced Nesting Techniques
• Nested Line Styles
• Paragraph Styles in Sequence: The Next Style Option
• Establishing Relationships: Based-on Styles

Chapter 3  Automatic Styling with GREP

• GREP Styles vs. Nested Styles
• Metacharacters
• Creating a GREP Style
• Defining Expressions for GREP Styles
• Chapter 4 Auto-styling Imported Word and Excel Files
• Working with Word Files
• Working with Excel Files

PART 2: STYLES BEYOND TEXT
Chapter 5  Object Styles

• One-stop Shopping for Attributes
• Default Object Styles
• Similarities Between Object Styles and Text Styles
• Differences Between Object Styles and Text Styles
• Combining Paragraph Styles and Object Styles
• Flexible Object Styles Every InDesign User Should Have

Chapter 6  Table and Cell Styles

• Table Styling
• Table Styles vs. Cell Styles
• Working with Table Style Limitations
• Maintaining Links and Updating Tables

PART 3: COMBINING STYLES WITH OTHER FEATURES
Chapter 7  Drop Caps, Bullets, and Numbering

• Drop Caps
• Bullets and Numbering

Chapter 8 Advanced Find/Change with Styles

• Finding and Changing Text Styles
• GREP Find/Change vs. GREP Styles
• Saving Queries
• Advanced Style-based Search Techniques
• Find/Change for Objects

Chapter 9  Generating Dynamic Content with Styles

• Tables of Contents
• Running Header Text Variables
• Cross-references

Chapter 10  Styles, CSS, and XML

• Export for Dreamweaver
• Styles and XML
• Importing XML
• XSLT: Styles on Steroids

Chapter 11  Style Management

• Style Organization Basics
• Style Groups
• Quick Apply
• Managing Styles Across Documents

BONUS ONLINE CHAPTERS
Stroke Styles

• Creating New Stroke Styles
• Saving Stroke Styles
• Modifying and Deleting Stroke Styles
• Sharing Stroke Styles
• Stroke Style Easter Eggs

Planning Projects with Styles in Mind

• Style Triage
• Creating “Undefined” Styles
• Power-apply Your Styles
• Redefine, Redefine, Redefine

Posted in Designer's Bookshelf, News/Announcements, Styles | 28 Comments »

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